Installing from github resulting in System command Rcmd.exe failed - still a problem

[Norcalbiostat]

This is still a persistent error. I'm trying out learnr tutorials with gradethis in my class and a quarter of the students can't install the tutorials on their computer because of this error.

[ref] How to resolve install_github fails with error System command 'Rcmd.exe' failed, exit status: 1, stdout + stderr?

Has there been any progress on a solution?

[grrrck]

This comment by bulloa1 in their follow up post

Update: In my case at least, I have narrowed down that any packages that need to build from a tar.gz (source) fail but not with a .zip (binary). It is able to download the tar.gz and save it to the temporary location, but it fails at the next step. Not sure, if you've found a solution, but I'll let you know if I do.

seems to point to an issue specifically with packages downloaded as tar.gz. That hints that maybe these issues might be relevant?

• Windows: trouble finding tar/rtools · Issue #249 · r-lib/remotes
• Installation failed: error in running command · Issue #1722 · r-lib/devtools · GitHub

Another option that might be helpful for installing the dev version of learnr is to use rstudio.r-universe.dev

# Enable universe(s) by rstudio
options(repos = c(
  rstudio = 'https://rstudio.r-universe.dev',
  CRAN = 'https://cloud.r-project.org'
))

install.packages('learnr')

Beyond that I think that any additional context you could provide would increase the likelihood that someone will be able to diagnose the issue or help.